The Mental Ward
by HelloInfinity
Summary: Stuck in a mental ward, unwilling to get better, somehow a bond of friendships manage to form. This is the journey of three diagnosed crazies as they attempt to put their lives back together. Fax.
1. I'm Not Crazy

Chapter One.

I'm Not Crazy.

They say opposites attract. I, however, believe this is complete and utter bullshit. For example, sane people hang out with sane people; crazy people hang out with crazy people, etcetera. Not often do you see the sane people hanging out the crazies in this society. That was probably the reason I had no friends…

… Who wants to be friends with a freak?

But I wasn't crazy, no; there was nothing wrong with me. Well, besides the fact I was grotesquely fat. But I could fix that. I would fix that. As soon as I got out of this white walled jail where they stuff me like a Thanksgiving Turkey. Force me to ingest more than my body needs so that even more fat will cling to my frail bones…

…I hate this place.

I look across the circle at the other people who are here. A few other girls like me who have starved themselves to the image of perfection. I want to look like them. The others are the ones who "are a danger to themselves or society."…

…We are the crazies.

I have completely shut myself down on the outside. No expression shall cross my face; no words shall come out of my mouth. I don't want to talk, almost as much as I don't want to eat. I don't want to make friends. I'm doing fine on my own…

…Even though I am incredibly lonely a lot of the time.

Dr. Martinez walks in and seats herself at the designated front of the crazy circle. She is here to direct our group talks, to keep conversation flowing. She begins by introducing one of the new patients. His name I miss; his nickname I don't. He says his friends call him Iggy. He proceeds to tell us he is diagnosed Schizophrenia and seventeen years old. Joy. We go around the circle doing introductions. Stating your diagnosed mental disorder is an option, but most opt to go for it. We all know we're insane. There is no part in hiding it. When it comes to my turn I say the rehearsed line, (My name is Max, I'm sixteen, diagnosed purging-type anorexia.), and immediately go back to studying my nails as the boy beside me introduces himself, (My name is Fang. I'm seventeen. Diagnosed depression.)…

...I think I like him.

Fang is the only person here I bother to have any contact with, even though he talks less than I. Once a day we pass a notebook back and forth. We fill exactly half a sheet of loose-leaf paper of conversation each day. Usually just "how are you", "you doing alright?", "stay strong we'll be out of here soon." Neither of us is really trying to get better. We're just pretending so hopefully we can be discharged. Wasted money and wasted time…

…but what else is life, really?

Half a year later, group ends, and Fang pulls out our conversation notebook and two pens different coloured pens. It's much easier to talk through writing than face to face.

_I hate group. _Fang writes. I nod and uncap my pen.

**I'm so sick of this fucking hospital.**

_ We'll be out soon._

** Not soon enough. **

_ Don't give up. Pretend to smile._

** How can I pretend to smile when I want to die?**

_ Practice. Now. Laugh._

I force a chuckle. I look up. Dr. Martinez smiles.

**Hopefully we can be out by the end of March.**

_ Wouldn't that be wonderful.._

We reach our designated stopping point and I hand the materials back to Fang. It's dinner time. With led in my shoes, I walk to the cafeteria to choke down food I do not want.


	2. Those Voices Aren't Real

Chapter Two.

Those Voices Aren't Real.

"Hey there," The schizo boy said, sitting down at my table in the cafeteria. I immediately stopped chewing and set down my fork. How dare he interrupt my eating?

"Hello." I said back, moving the little bit of food to the back of my mouth and swallowing it. I only chewed it 18 times. I clenched my fist that was under the table and took a deep breath. I wasn't allowed to purge it anyway.

"Can I sit here? Because everyone else scares me," He said, taking a seat before I could respond. So I nodded and took a sip of water.

"Why do they scare you?" I asked, hating the sound of my own stupid voice. Even my voice sounded fat, deep and low, unlike the high pitched and adorable sounding voice of a skinny girl...

...maybe I am crazy, I thought.

"Everyone looks like they're plotting something." He said, taking a huge forkful of fatty and disgusting food and shovelling it into his mouth like the greedy pig he no doubt was.

…you need to stop judging people based on the fact they eat, I thought, gathering up a small bite of chicken and rice and putting it into my mouth. I concentrated on chewing my food exactly twenty-six times before swallowing.

"That's because everyone _is_ plotting something. How to get out of here," I said, pushing my mostly-finished plate of food away from me. They used to make me eat it all. Now they don't care as much. Fang had eaten with me earlier. He ate so fast, I hardly had time to process it. And then he was gone, off to probably try and sleep for a bit before the nurses forced him back into activities.

"I like it here," Iggy said. "They have lots of drugs to keep my hallucinations at bay." He told me. I shrugged. I didn't want to talk anymore.

"I'm going to go for a walk." I told him, taking my plate and standing up. I could probably run the empty halls for a bit and burn off half my dinner without getting caught, I figured. An attendant glanced up at from her clipboard. She was making sure I wasn't off to purge in the bathroom. I knew because she'd told me on the first day I'd been there.

I kind of liked the Iggy kid already, mostly because I was the only person that didn't scare him in here. Apparently emotionless is less scary than the scared, sad, or angry looks that covered most of the rest of the patients' faces. I contemplated this as I quietly ran up and down the halls, slowing to a walk when I so much as heard someone nearby. Last thing I needed was to be diagnosed as exercise bulimic and thrown back into the routine I had when I was watched 24/7. That would only create a longer span of time between now and when I got out.

Besides the fact that the Iggy kid hear voices and saw things, I wondered why he'd ended up in here. It's not like they could do much for schizophrenics besides give them meds. Maybe he'd tried to kill himself. That wasn't an uncommon reason to be here.

I looked at the clock, sighed at the time, and went to music therapy. I liked music therapy. I was a pretty decent piano player, and Fang was decent at guitar. He hadn't known how to play before coming here a month prior, but now he could play most basic songs and was making stuff up on his own. We tended to lead the group in playing. We weren't anything fabulous, just the best out of the 16 kids in here.

I wondered briefly if Fang and I would still be friends once we got out. There'd been talk that they were considering discharging the pair of us soon. We'd been making "progress". To them, we were becoming mentally stable; to us, we were just getting better at hiding our disorders.

My hands drifted over the keys of the worn down instrument, my fingers playing out the only five songs we all knew. I had to admit; this definitely calmed me down and made me feel _okay_ for a while.

When I finally escaped this prison, I was going to get my mother to enrol me in piano lessons. Not only would it help keep me sane and out of here, but it would give me another way to keep myself from eating.

I looked over at Fang as both music and thought danced around my head and smiled slightly. I was lucky enough to receive a tiny, rare smile in return. I poured my heart into the music that night.

**Authors Note:**

**I know this story isn't exactly very eventful.. yet.**

**I'm just sorta setting errything up, yo.**

**I don't know why I just turned into a gangster.**

**Anyway, reviews, please?**

**Criticism, plot ideas, etc.**

**Anything to help me improve the story.**

**Just no hate please. **


	3. SelfHated Never Goes Away

Chapter Three.

Self-hated never goes away.

I wake up to two nurses standing over me, their evil little eyes staring down into my soul. Oh, right, Wednesday. I was going to be weighed and poked and prodded with needles to test my vitals, and then I'd be shipped down to the feeding area where I would ingest 200 extra calories for breakfast than usual, and then burn them all off in the hospital's gym. I hated Wednesdays. I sat up in bed and stretched and a nurse then checked my blood pressure while another took blood out of my other arm. Then one listened to my heartbeat while another got me a cup to pee in. The joys of the hospital…

I completed these tests before they took me down in nothing but a paper thin robe and made me step on my worst enemy – the doctor's scale. There was no running or hiding from the number that would appear here. It was dead accurate and I couldn't trick it to be higher or lower like I could with the one at home. I didn't want to look. I didn't look, actually, but the stupid nurse read the disgusting number out loud. _122_. I want to curl up in a ball and die. "You're finally at a healthy weight, Max."; "Your BMI is no longer in danger zone." They tell me. It's all lies. My body is suffocating in fat; drowning in it. My organs don't like the extra weight, and I feel slow and sluggish as I step off the scale and they wrap tape measures around me. I can no longer fit my hands around my thigh, I note as they read out the inches to me.

I am disgusting.

I put a smile on my face, however, as they read out everything. I put on the mask and switch off my brain. I am a healthy girl. I have gained 26 pounds in treatment, and I have 4 more to go before they can release me. I want this, I tell myself. Because for now I need to act like I really do. I need to act like I enjoy the extra energy and strength. I don't. It just means I'm not starving, I'm not getting thinner, and I hate it. They commend me on my progress and tell me that tomorrow I will be going out for dinner with the other "successful" patients; the other anorexics and bulimics and suicidal teens that have been "fixed". We're going to Olive Garden. I die a little inside.

Before my disorder latched onto my mind and took control of my every thought, I weighed a plump and healthy 140 and Olive Garden was my favourite restaurant. I went to Subway every other day at lunch with my friends, and I made midnight runs to McDonald's in my at-the-time boyfriend's car. I'd always hated my body, though, and found myself throwing up all the crap I ate, anything too processed and filled with chemicals. I told myself I'd been doing myself a favour. "My body can't do anything with that, anyway." I told myself as I stuck my fingers down my throat. "That bad food will just hurt me." I said, as the contents of my stomach poured into the white porcelain basin.

It took about a year after I taught myself to throw up that I figured out the benefits of throwing up everything, and then about how amazing starving felt. I would eat dinner with my family to keep them off my back, and then shower and let everything wash down that drain. It turned into an addiction quickly, and soon I found myself staying home instead of going out to avoid eating. A few months later, I'd lost 40lbs and most of my sanity. Another, and I'd lost another 10lbs, and clumps of my hair started coming out. But I couldn't stop, no, because when I was hungry I was happy. I could float and fly over the world. I will get there again, I told myself, as I was herded into cafeteria and sat down and handed an omelette, two pieces of toast, a ¾ cup of cereal with ½ a cup of milk (the perfect serving size), and a glass of juice. I added up the calories in my head and pushed the tears and the self-loathing back as I proceeded to shovel everything into my mouth.

With every bite my self-hatred grew. With every bite the desire to take the dull knife beside me and slide it down my wrist and open up my veins grew stronger and stronger. I closed my eyes tight as I finished off the cereal and took three deep breaths. Just as I opened them, Fang walked in, grabbed his plate, and sat down across from me. Eating was easier with him there. I grabbed the toast and put jam on it before taking a bite of the sugar covered, calorie filled disgusting mess I had created. Fang smiled at me with his eyes and silently encouraged me to take another, and another. Soon all the toast was gone. I gulped down the orange juice and got that over with before starting in on the omelette. My throat was closing up. My body did not want this, my mind did not want this, and my every atom was resisting as I put the forkful of egg into my mouth, chewed 26 times, and swallowed.

I finished half the omelette before I honestly could not handle anymore. As I stood up, pushing myself up with my hand on the table, Fang's made its way on top of mine. "You look beautiful, Max." Was all he said in his soft, low voice. I'd almost thought I'd imagined it for a second. But I felt my face warm up, and I'd watched his lips move, and then I felt his hand lift off mine and in a dazed sort of way I made my way across the cafeteria without acknowledging what I'd said. I was such a bitch. But he'd called me beautiful. I scraped off the rest of the omelette into the trash and went to my room.

As I grabbed my gym clothes and avoided looking in the mirror I couldn't help thinking that Fang had to have been high somehow. I am not beautiful, and I have never been beautiful. I was ugly and gross. I had fat everywhere that spilled out of my clothes, my hair was dull and drab and falling out, my eyes were hollow and empty and had huge dark circles under them, and my skin was blotchy and uneven. I sighed and slipped on my shorts before finding my nurse to take me to the gym.

Once I was skinny again I'd be beautiful.

No, not really, I was just lying to myself. I'd always hate what I looked like.

**Authors Note:**

**Alright, before I even get started writing this chapter, I've decided to answer the questions in your reviews. Mostly, because one of them made me slightly angry and annoyed, even though I know the person was just trying to help. And I'll forget if I don't do it now. SO. **

_**My-wings-help-me-fly-away**_**; originally I was going to reply to your review in a message. However, then I thought, well someone might ask similar questions so might as well answer them here. I'm sorry but I have to correct you here. I'm going to start off by saying not only do I suffer from an eating disorder, but I also spend a good portion of my time researching them because I find them fascinating. Now, the disorder in which you BINGE eat (binging is eating until uncomfortably full... and then continuing to eat) and then purge is bulimia. I have never in my life heard of Anorexia Athletica, and honestly, what I think you're referring to is exercise bulimia. However, I'm going to research it right now. *Le elevator music* Okay, what I got from my 5 minutes of research is that Anorexia Althletica is what you said, but it is pretty much the same as Exercise Bulimia and can be used interchangeably with Anorexia Nervosa. Now, I'm not exactly sure how you missed this, but Max has purge-type anorexia. It is stated clearly in the group therapy scene. Purge type anorexia is when you don't binge eat, but you purge whatever is consumed. People with this disorder tend to be underweight, unlike bulimics who are of average or overweight. **

**Hope that cleared everything up.**

_**VampireRide**_** (and anyone else who asked me if Max is actually fat); Max is not actually fat. Eating Disorders tend to come along with a lovely little disease called Body Dysmorphia, in which you cannot actually see yourself as you physically are. Anorexics don't tend to call other people fat. In fact, most believe they are the fattest person in the entire world. **

_**ThAtOtHeRpSyCoPaTh; **_**I always thought Max would be keen to an eating disorder because I always thought she had slight perfectionist qualities. And, sometimes, EDs can be accompanied by a little voice in your head; usually the voice of "Ana" or "Mia" (Anorexia or Bulimia). I gave Iggy schizophrenia because since he is blind in the books, he has to have images he creates in his head.**

**Thanks to everyone who gave me a positive review last chapter. I really appreciate it. **

**Thanks for reading, and please review! I honestly love reading what you all have to say. I'm also open to any questions about eating disorders or depression or nutrition and diets and things like that. It's one of my passions. Just message me. Although, remember, I'm not a doctor. **


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